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00:00This interview is being recorded in the background interview room at Corian Police Station.
00:13The date is Thursday the 29th of January 2009, the time taken from the clock on the wall is 20.03 hours.
00:20This evening I am interviewing, could you please state your full name?
00:23Colin David Heil.
00:30For almost 20 years it was believed to be suicide.
00:36Two people devastated by the breakdown of their marriages.
00:40The real truth lay hidden.
00:42The Valley Money dentist Colin Heil murdered his wife and his lover's husband,
00:46but staged it to look like a suicide pact.
00:51He'd got away with this for two decades.
00:55I was just told that Colin Heil looked at the police station and had it himself in.
01:00Actually I did it. Casual as you like.
01:06I would suggest that anybody who has an affair will always think they'd be better off without their partner.
01:12I do believe that thoughts of murder are immediately connected to that.
01:17Wealthy, middle class, from that sort of Bible belt of Northern Ireland,
01:21preaching the church on a Sunday and planning a double murder.
01:25I'd agreed that what I would do would be that I would pipe the fumes of the car from the garage into the house.
01:35The full confession, every bit of detail.
01:38And then every bit of detail on Hazel Stuart.
01:40Hazel's role then was to clear up and I gave her the hose pipe and she cut it into sections and burnt it in the fire to get rid of that part of it.
01:48This was all my idea. With which she cooperated.
01:54What turns a Sunday school teacher into someone who's an accomplice to a double killing?
02:00Why did it stay sacred for so long?
02:02And what really is the story behind this story?
02:04Not in my wildest dreams could I suspect it.
02:08Two people like that carrying out the most vile, vile, heinous crime.
02:16May the burning question call.
02:18Why are you here?
02:20Why are you sitting in a sentence of you and being interrogated by two murders that you cried out nearly 18 years ago?
02:25When I first decided to come here, I believed it was the right thing to do.
02:35I knew it would be big. I didn't have the vision to see how big it would be.
02:41It might be a little easier for me.
03:02What's the time?
03:03Five to walk. We'll be done.
03:05That's fine.
03:06I worked with Colin Howell from August 2005 until August 2008.
03:13Colin and the practice, they used to take us for away days, basically for team building.
03:21The whole team used to go together. It was, yeah, really good fun.
03:25I think Colin was always taking the limelight. He likes to be center off stage, which he was good at.
03:48I think that that's what I feel about the whole practice is that, although there's about 50% of the people here are new, staff, it's getting better and it's maturing and it's going forward.
03:59It's like a good team and I really appreciate everybody who's here.
04:03And so welcome to today, welcome to the future.
04:07Hope next year that we're not happy ever going.
04:10We were good friends, you know, I was good friends with him. He was, you know, a good boss. You know, it felt really, really sad to leave because, you know, I stayed three years and I wanted to do something else.
04:26There's a picture from, yeah, 30th of August 2008. So this was my leaving due.
04:40We were all sitting on one big table, everybody together, you know, dinner, speeches, drinks, things like that.
04:50And after dinner, you know, Colin came and sat beside me and he asked me, like, you know, in Islam, do you have forgiveness?
04:59And I said, of course, you know, in Islam, you know, God is forgiving, but it depends on what is to be forgiven.
05:07You know, so I just said to him as an example, you know, if someone kills someone, if, you know, murder someone, you know, I don't think, you know, God will forgive him for that.
05:20And immediately his face color just changed. And he said to me, excuse me. And then he went to the bathroom, came back, changed the subject completely, didn't mention it again.
05:31Five months after that conversation, Colin walks into a police station and confesses to a double murder.
05:40And then he was a double murder.
06:10We were arrested by my colleague, I think you spoke twenty past one this afternoon, isn't
06:15that correct?
06:16Right.
06:17On suspicion of this double murder.
06:19I believe it stems from certain conversations that you had with church elders or persons
06:27within your community.
06:28So we just invite you now, is there anything you want to tell us, Mr Howe?
06:33I contacted my phone to say, have you heard about the situation in Coleraine?
06:39He said, there's a fella has been locked in the church and he's confessed to murder.
06:46And I'm like, who could this be?
06:49I thought, was it paramilitary?
06:51Was it, what on earth had happened?
06:53And I hadn't heard about any murder that had happened in recent days.
06:56And he said, no, no, no, this is a murder from years ago.
07:00And then he said, it's a double murder.
07:02I got up to cool rain pretty quickly.
07:07And by that stage, Colin Howell had confessed to the murder of his wife, Leslie, and of his
07:15then lover's husband, Trevor Buchanan.
07:17I think that one of the things that's recently happened and part of the reason that I'm here is that I know that I have lived in a, in a, an unreal world.
07:34A fantasy world almost being one thing deep down and not even knowing that I'm, that I'm a fake in a sense.
07:48That's one of the awarenesses that I've had every, in the last month.
07:53Um, is just, there's a lot about me that's fraud.
08:02This was a case that was being treated as suicide and had been treated like that for years.
08:07And someone walked in and confessed to murders, which weren't even on the police's books as murders.
08:23A 50 year old man who contacted the police last Thursday had been charged with murdering two people whose deaths 18 years ago were treated as suicide.
08:32The bodies of Trevor Buchanan and Leslie Howell were found in a fume filled car in a garage in Castle Rock in County Londonderry in 1991.
08:39What I knew at that stage was there were two victims to the murders, physically victims to the murders.
08:48There were two people involved, but there was only one person being held anywhere.
08:54So then there was the kind of scurry of who's the other person.
08:58Today, a man and a woman are being questioned on suspicion of murder.
09:02They are Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart, who was formerly Buchanan.
09:09Hazel Stewart did not know what was going to come down her road that day.
09:14She was having a normal day.
09:16She got a knock on the door and the next thing she is being questioned by the police about a double murder.
09:22Hazel Stewart hid her head in her hands and cried as the two charges were put to her.
09:36Resident Magistrate Richard Wilson released her on her own bail of £5,000.
09:41The people who were going to be affected, Hazel, his church, people from the past, people who have moved on and become a family.
09:55The earthquake that it was going to cause.
09:58And just the problem was created by doing the right thing 18 years too late rather than doing the right thing 18 years ago.
10:08You know, so the magnitude of the shock.
10:12So yeah, it is the right thing.
10:14But it's the delay. It makes it the monumental thing.
10:22And all of a sudden this sort of seedy, sort of underbelly of suburbia starts sort of coming out.
10:27And you realise, you know, that these people who are preaching the church on a Sunday were also having this torred affair and planning a double murder.
10:34So that could continue. I mean, that is an explosive story.
10:36I just thought, this is the time in my life to not be in control anymore.
10:43You know, to do what is right.
10:46You know, to do what is right.
10:47Hazel Stewart didn't confess. And that court in Colerain over those two weeks when she was being tried was an incredible.
10:51Hazel Stewart didn't confess and that court in Coleraine over those two weeks when she
11:12was being tried was an incredible piece of real-life drama. Hazel Stewart seen here in the green coat
11:24denies she is a murderer. Today the prosecution outlined their case against her. They say she is
11:30an accomplished liar and wholly complicit in the murders of her first husband RUC officer Trevor
11:36Buchanan and her former lover's wife Leslie Howell.
11:42Every time Hazel Stewart was in court paper sales increased dramatically. People could
11:56not get enough of this story they wanted to know every aspect they wanted to know who she was,
12:00who he was, they wanted to know what had happened, the involvement of the church.
12:10The sort of life that these people, that many of us that are completely alien to you know the life
12:17of these people in this Baptist church in Coleraine, what was going on behind the scenes and people
12:21wanted to know every single bit of it. They read every single line of the court copy. It was a story
12:26that as a journalist you were being stopped in the street by people and saying what else is
12:30happening. You know they wanted to know the unprintable parts of the story as well.
12:41The Buchanan family have been in mourning since Trevor's death in 1991. While there's immense satisfaction that justice for Trevor has finally been achieved,
12:52there's no sense of victory and no cause for celebration as nothing can bring Trevor and Leslie back to us. And all families connected to this matter have been grievously impacted.
13:08We mourn our mother Leslie and are pained at the time and the memories that we have been so denied. We rejoice in the contribution our mum made to our lives in the short time we had together.
13:19We know her to have been a loving, devoted mother and we bitterly regret the horrible way in which she was taken from us.
13:27We're a little further to her mother.
13:57From a human interest point of view, you're covering the day and dailies of a murder trial,
14:17but you couldn't help but think something else is going on here behind the scenes.
14:20I mean, these children showing up to protect their mother,
14:23and we know, you know, the bond between a mother and child is very strong,
14:26but when she's accused of killing their father, there's clearly a story behind the story.
14:34We love our father and our mother, you know, so it doesn't, we're not taking any sides.
14:40We wouldn't have wanted what had happened to her dad ever to happen.
14:45But we've, you know, we lost, we lost our dad, and this nearly feels like we're going to lose our mum.
14:56We lost our mother, so it does not look like we're going to lose our dad.
15:04And you know, you are born, but the story is that our father would have been pure enough for us to give a life for us.
15:12So this is good.
15:13At the heart of this appeal is the claim that we're making that Hazel Stewart was suffering
15:32from coercive control on the part of Colin Hall at the time of the commission of these
15:38offences.
15:40I think it's very telling that Hazel Stewart's family have been totally supportive of her.
15:44I think it says a lot that they've all stood by her and that solidarity and support reflects
15:53I think what they really believe happened here.
15:57Yes, she was complicit in a scenario that led to the horrible outcome of the death of
16:04two people, but I think they accept and understand that the level of complicity, if that's the
16:13right way to put it, was so much different than what was stated in the court and the legal
16:21proceedings so far.
16:23Colin Hall was quite an overpowering figure.
16:27He was someone who was very intelligent, very educated.
16:31I think that he understood how women, especially women in his world, in that very religious world
16:37thought and how he could control them and he controlled them a lot through religion and
16:41their faith.
16:49The issue or the concept of the crime of coercive control had not fully evolved or developed
16:56back in the day.
16:57You're talking over 20 years ago now.
17:00And of course, in the last number of years, that has emerged as a very serious criminal issue,
17:09which is now regularly cited and referenced when it comes to all forms of abuse by one
17:17partner over another or all sorts of other relationships.
17:21It is a criminal offence.
17:25What we're trying to do, a couple of decades on after this, is to try to recalibrate the
17:31whole position in Hazel Stewart's case and in her defence.
17:47So these are sort of things that are 18-year memories, you know, I just can't remember.
17:53I'm not intentionally holding back because that's not what I'm doing in any of the information
17:59I'm giving you.
18:00I've known about this story for more than 15, 16 years.
18:05As a journalist, it has absolutely fascinated me all of that time.
18:10I've been working in journalism for 36 years and it has been one of the most fascinating
18:15areas of my career.
18:18When you listen to these tapes, they're very detailed, they're very, very calm.
18:24You know, his calm creates turmoil and he's very polite.
18:31He's very helpful.
18:32He's very mannerly.
18:33His grammar is perfect, you know, and his accent and his sort of very middle class demeanour
18:43of his speech within these confessions, I find that fascinating.
18:50This shows who Colin Howell is, who he was, who he pretended to be, all the different aspects
18:56of Colin Howell are in these tapes.
18:58They're incredible and this is the first time the public will have heard these.
19:02And I think most people will find them as fascinating as I have found them.
19:08In the tapes, we've got Colin's version of events and Colin's version then triggered Hazel
19:13Stewart's version and Hazel Stewart's version is different to Colin's version.
19:19When I first decided to come here, I believed it was the right thing to do, knew it would
19:29be big, didn't have the vision to see how big it would be.
19:35Castlederic has suffered more than most towns at the hands of the terrorists.
19:53Over the years, there have been 30 bomb attacks in the town centre and more than 80 people
19:57have been murdered in the area.
20:03In the late 80s, Castlederic was almost a siege town.
20:07The centre of the town was all blocked off and they were high security because we were
20:11only within a mile of the Irish border.
20:14Trevor was a police officer in the time.
20:17He was a people person, he got on wonderful and children just loved him.
20:22Hazel would have come and taken some of our boys up to Trevor's to go on the trikes and
20:29that and Trevor would have shown them the police car and that, all the gadgets and all the
20:33radios and all that and he even showed them how the guns and all worked.
20:36And me and our children were just drawn like a magnet to Trevor and to all the things that
20:40he showed them.
20:41It was part of our home.
20:43I was very friendly with Trevor and really nice, nice guy, quite quiet actually.
20:52We all went out together, times were hard and we'd done long hours, maybe we finished at
20:578 o'clock at night, sometimes 12 o'clock, headed out for a few beers and just a good,
21:03really, really good guy, liked by everybody.
21:07Army bomb experts resumed a detailed search of the area in daylight, finding one unexploded
21:13mortar at the firing point.
21:15I was involved in a bomb explosion and I was transferred and got a chance to go elsewhere and I headed
21:25up to North West and I ended up, arrived up in Coleraine.
21:29I used to go down and call with him, he says, look, you've got around a bit now, why do you
21:38not stick in a transfer and see about getting up there?
21:42And he put it off for a while and I remember sitting down with him and Hazel and he said,
21:49do you know what somebody says?
21:50I think I will.
21:51So he moved to Coleraine for the benefit of himself and his family, so that he'd be away
21:57from Castledere, my troubles and that they'd be all much safer there.
22:02You're in a different world entirely.
22:17Derry's over the mountain, Belfast is up the motorway and you could be really a million
22:21miles away.
22:22And that's why people come here is to relax and sort of take it easy.
22:31In comparison to some of the other places like Derry or Belfast, South Iron Mar, Fermanagh,
22:35a place like that, it was relatively safe and a place where you felt comfortable.
22:50It's a dramatic area, dramatic scenery, dramatic Atlantic Ocean.
22:58It is spectacular, it's a fantastic backdrop to life, holidays, work, it's a beautiful
23:06place.
23:07It's a bit of paradise and people really aspire to live there.
23:13I think it's really the big characteristic is friendship.
23:20People are just so outgoing and so friendly.
23:23No matter where you go, people just talk to you and, you know, if you meet them in the
23:26street, they'll always say hello, they'll always, they won't walk past you, they'll always
23:30say hello, how's it going?
23:32It is a culture of people that are very different to lots of other parts of the world.
23:53John Howell lived about 75 metres from me in the same park as me, it was a place called
23:58Knockley Park.
24:00All were new homes.
24:03And he was my dentist.
24:07He was a seven enough guy, very professional, very good, very well respected.
24:19He was, he wasn't your average dentist, by any means that he had a very, very strong,
24:23good business going in Ball of Money.
24:25Very popular in Ball of Money, I know that for sure, he was a popular guy and he was very
24:30heavily involved with the church.
24:35You know, he was a part of our community and he really was a part of the society.
24:49He was very charismatic, he was very charming.
24:52Leslie Howell was clearly someone who had also been charmed by Colin Howell.
24:59He had charmed her, she had married him and probably thought, you know, this was her life
25:02set.
25:03She was with this very successful dentist.
25:04Money was no object, they live in a very nice home.
25:07And she had four children who she absolutely adored and we know that.
25:13She was a completely and utterly devoted mother.
25:15The house would be full of the smell of baking or painting.
25:21She didn't seem to mind about the mess, it was just so long as they were enjoying themselves.
25:26She wanted the best for her children and she really was a very good mother.
25:30I remember one day she came in with her group of friends and she said to her friend, my, your
25:34wee boy is just gorgeous, he is beautiful, almost as nice as my Daniel.
25:40And she just took such pleasure in them when Lauren was born, says come and see my little
25:44princess.
25:45And she just adored her.
25:50Pretty much middle class, you know, backgrounds, children at good schools, just very, you know,
25:56very ordinary approach to life and nobody took them onto their notice.
26:02You know, it's just, it's just a feeling that I've lived a life for a long time, the hypocrisy
26:15of me and the way that I've lived my life, of having an image and doing a good job of creating
26:22that image.
26:23But yes, reputation of being a good dentist, but that's probably what I survived on was
26:34a good image when deep down in the core of my heart, I was someone who was willing to
26:41take the life of two people.
26:45When they moved to Claraine, Hazel Buchanan didn't know anyone.
26:53She wasn't familiar, particularly with that area.
26:56She isn't someone that had a lot of female friends anyway, but she decided that they would
27:00join the church and this was how they socialised.
27:03Their whole lives revolved around the church.
27:06Well, Trevor, when they came here, they sort of became more religious and got involved with
27:15the church.
27:16He gave us testimony at some stage, you know, it was where you declare that they're saved
27:20and that was his commitment to the religion and he would have been a man that sort of exemplified
27:28Christianity, you know, that was his ethos and that was what you would expect from a
27:32good Christian man to be.
27:42The religious element is very strong in the North Coast.
27:46There's a feeling of wholesomeness, let's put it that way.
27:49There's an atmosphere and a feeling of, this is wholesome, you know, this is natural, this
27:53is authentic.
27:54A steady place, a place of where good work is done, not too much fuss made about anything,
28:01and we glory in our surroundings.
28:09Religion up here is just something else like, I mean, people are, you know, they really are
28:13into the church.
28:14Church is a massive thing for them and they'll be regular attenders.
28:22Hazel and Colin Howell met at Coleraine Baptist and had sat pretty close to each other, you
28:33know, they had their own seats, family seats, and they could see each other from their family
28:38seats.
28:39They were there on a weekly basis and then they had done prayer meetings and she was involved
28:44in Sunday school and his kids were at Sunday school.
28:45It was all very wholesome on the outside.
28:51But Hazel was one who always remained aloof.
28:56Sometimes the chat that Trevor and I might have had, just on general things, would have
29:01given you the impression that Hazel felt that Trevor should be moving in the upper class
29:06circles and she might have thought that he should have aspired to be something of a superintendent's
29:12rank or chief inspector at least or something which set him apart from the hoi polloi.
29:21I don't think she'd ever met a man like Colin Howell before and was completely, I think,
29:26under his spell quite quickly.
29:27Her husband, Trevor, despite the fact that he was a policeman and we know that he had,
29:31you know, a career in the RUC, he was quite quiet and he was quite timid and he wouldn't
29:36have been someone who would have been flirtatious or charming in the way that Colin Howell would
29:40have been, who immediately, I think, set sights on her and decided that she was going to
29:45be someone that he was going to target for an affair.
29:48There's an intensity about him, there's a red hot intensity about him, but it goes
29:55white hot when he meets Hazel and he decides, there's the girl for me.
30:01Well, it would be fair to say that your relationship then had been fairly intense, passionately intense,
30:07you were extremely emotionally attached to her, isn't it?
30:10I would say, yeah.
30:11Yeah.
30:12Was your relationship sexual?
30:14Yes.
30:15Did you ever at any time tell that you loved her?
30:20Yeah.
30:21And did she say the same to you?
30:23Yeah.
30:24There were secret phone calls, there were secret codes, everything was clandestine,
30:30they met in secret, then they got caught.
30:35Someone in the Baptist church had seen our cars at the forest at Castle Row, just saw them
30:47together and he phoned me and said he'd seen the cars and wanted to know if I wanted to say
30:59what it was about or would he have to do that?
31:03Which is then I went to the pastor of the church, John Hansford, and made a confession as such.
31:12I heard Colin make his apology to Trevor for his adultery with Hazel.
31:21And I also witnessed Trevor accepting that apology from Colin.
31:31And then they in some way reached out to each other, shook hands and in a measure lightly,
31:39as far as I can remember, hugged each other.
31:43It seemed like an incredible success story of Christian counselling.
31:49It's the way things ought to be.
31:51When there's wrongdoing there should be repentance, forgiveness and restoration, that's the absolute
31:56ideal.
31:59It's not normal that church people would act like that.
32:02In other words, I do know that I was an aberration and a now disgrace to church people because
32:11of this behaviour, because it doesn't represent a normal church or even normal human person,
32:18community person.
32:20For the people in the church, this type of scandal wasn't something they wanted associated
32:24with their church.
32:25They wanted to associate it with their members.
32:27And so those people who did know said nothing, you know, they closed down.
32:31They might have, you know, in an evening or on a Sunday, silently, you know, in church might
32:36have prayed for the souls of these people, but they certainly weren't for going out into
32:39the street and talking about what they had done because it was such a closed community.
32:44You could say that the church were protective of the church.
32:56The confession to Lesley was, was set, not set up, but was organised through the pastor,
33:04John Hansford.
33:05And so it was arranged that I was, make the confession and he was, he withdrew.
33:12So he wasn't in the house at the time, I was alone with her.
33:17And that's when she, when I told her she exploded and went to the bathroom and took tablets.
33:27Scattered a lot of them, took some of them and drove off.
33:36I phoned John Hansford right away and he came up to the house.
33:42And then in, in a few hours or whatever, I was informed she was at the pool and having
33:46her stomach pumped.
33:55This is where I think that Lesley Howell was really let down.
33:59She had complained on several occasions.
34:01People knew she was in a very unhappy marriage.
34:03People knew he was a philanderer.
34:04People knew that he was not being kind to her and her four children.
34:08They knew that she was struggling and yet nobody thought to put an arm around her.
34:11Instead it was, let's try and keep this as quiet as possible.
34:15When Lesley did the suicide attempt and planted the seed, that would be good for me if that happened.
34:25I would suggest that anybody who has an affair will always think they'd be better off without
34:35their partner.
34:36I do believe that thoughts of murder are immediately connected to that.
34:41As I say, not everyone takes action on it.
34:44But it's the concept of that person, life would be better without them.
34:49So easy questions on this, but why don't you leave her?
34:54Would that have been far better?
34:57Well, you know, it's an office for me to make.
35:00It's a much easier thought, I would suggest it's a much easier thought.
35:08I would find it much easier to think enough and walk out the front door than to sit and think.
35:18She said she'd be better off dead.
35:20And then to go through, she's right, you know.
35:24You know, that's a good, that is right.
35:30I don't disagree with that.
35:32That would have been a better thought and an easier thought.
35:40And my mind began to hatch a plot of how I might make this happen and cover it up as
35:47a suicide.
35:51What I would do would be that I would pipe gas, sorry, the fumes of the car from the
35:56garage into the house, both front of my house and then at Trevor Buchanan's house.
36:04Leslie regularly would go to bed well dosed up with temazepam, I think it was, temazepam
36:10and alcohol, and it helped her sleep.
36:13It was her way of dealing with the pain.
36:18My parents sometimes stayed at my house and they had left behind some other sleeping tablets.
36:24So I gave some of those to Hazel and asked her to mash them up and put them in something
36:29that Trevor would eat.
36:31The concept for me was that books would fall asleep deeply, that I would put this gas pipe
36:40after starting the car up beside him and then they'd fall asleep quietly.
36:43That was my understanding of what would happen.
36:48I met with Hazel.
36:53She came in her car and obviously there was this great fear we'd be caught so it was kind
36:56of, she was very terrified of that, of being caught and I know that she didn't want, she
37:02wanted to meet me but she didn't and I would begin by saying that my influence on her was
37:07already strong and great.
37:13Her role was more limited than mine so she didn't, she didn't need to know everything
37:16that was happening.
37:17She didn't need to know, in a sense, my strategy.
37:20Well I did tell her my strategy, what I would do.
37:25She didn't need to be concerned about how I would do it so much as what she had to do.
37:34I was not someone who was looking for what was really in her heart.
37:38So, on the basis that things like Eddie Mayfair was, as we discussed earlier, was driven
37:46by me, albeit with her cooperation, it's highly likely that she didn't want to do it.
37:54But she did obviously co-operate, that can't be denied, it was a co-operation, she did,
38:00but did she really want to?
38:01I think it's hugely significant that, despite the heinous nature of the terrible atrocities
38:27that took place in this case, and the involvement of Hazel Stewart in those horrible acts.
38:34There's been a real deficit though, that the full background and circumstances under which
38:38she was in that position, and how she came to find herself in that position, that that
38:43has never been fully brought out in any court, and key to that is highlighting and identifying
38:49and specifying that what she went through back in the day, when she was in a relationship
38:55with Howell, was that she was under coercive control. And we've identified and located
39:00a well-known expert in this field.
39:02Colin Howell, husband of the second deceased, clearly guilty to both the murders of Trevor
39:19and his wife Leslie. The prosecution alleged that the applicant was partly to the joint enterprise
39:25murder of both deceased.
39:27I'm Duncan Harding. I'm a consultant forensic psychiatrist. I'm also a specialist member
39:34of the parole board for England and Wales. I sit on about 120 parole hearings a year. What
39:41it means is that I'm very experienced in seeing people who've been in prison for a long time,
39:47and have been in a system, in an institutionalized system. And I'm really used to assessing those
39:57people at length.
39:58Background, new line. On 2nd of March 2011, applicant was convicted of the murders of both
40:06her husband, Trevor Buchanan…
40:07What's interesting in this particular situation is that if we look at the original trial, and
40:14we try and find the voice of Hazel Stewart, it's markedly absent. And then we can think
40:20of the appeal, and we can think of the narrative of the way that this case has progressed.
40:26My sense, and again, this is broad brushstrokes, because I haven't looked at all this in a huge
40:30amount of detail, but my sense is that she's been lost within that system. And I think if
40:36you see an example of systemic control in that way, where her voice is lost, which is the heart
40:42of coercive control, it's what coercive control is, the person that's been controlled loses
40:46their voice essentially. And so if she's lost her voice in the system, it's possible she lost her voice
40:51in that interpersonal dynamic with that other person, with her co-defendant.
40:55The fact that this thing came out of the blue, apparently, for me personally, does not make
41:04me think, gosh, then in that case, she must have been controlled. It doesn't make me think
41:08that at all. I would be very skeptical. What I can do as an expert, though, is I can look
41:13back at someone's past, and I can think about it with my, you know, with the credibility of
41:19being a child and adolescent forensic psychiatrist. I can dissect into her past, and I can, you
41:25know, I can make a comment about whether, in my view, it's likely or not that this would
41:30have occurred just out of the blue, or is it more likely that she was pulled along by
41:38another person who perhaps, if you were to look into his past, would be a very different
41:42story, and she was controlled in some way.
41:48We see this case, subject to the outworkings and content of Dr Duncan Harding's report,
41:53we see this case on its way back to court.
41:59She can say, and she has said, through her lawyer, I didn't know what I was doing, I
42:06didn't have any choice, I was coercively controlled, we didn't know about coercive control back in
42:10the day, which, in fact, of course we did. And Colin Howell planned everything meticulously,
42:17and then he found another little helper who can plan with them, and was able to work alongside
42:22him to ensure that they got their own way. And Hazel Stuart was that person.
42:26Should have been me, I asked you to do this. The house is obviously a lot of time has passed
42:35and, er, you've moved out of the house. Oh, great. Could you draw me just a, er...
42:41Sketch. Sketch. And like a floor plan, if you like, if you're a bungalow.
42:47If you really want to concentrate, just maybe on the living room.
43:02Yeah.
43:06Kitchen.
43:08Tell your own carriage.
43:10Yeah.
43:11Try the house.
43:13Yeah, if it will. It's just, er, just, it's just the bearings, you know, for a second.
43:17I'll do it on a carriage.
43:19I'll do it on a carriage.
43:21I'll do it on a carriage.
43:22Okay.
43:23Thanks.
43:24Um, then, uh, I'll quit four pounds of the piano set.
43:25Car.
43:26You're kitchen.
43:27Oh, fire.
43:28Fire.
43:29Fire.
43:30Fire.
43:31Fire.
43:32Fire.
43:33Fire.
43:34Fire.
43:35Fire.
43:38Fire.
43:40Fire.
43:41Fire.
43:42Fire.
43:43Fire.
43:44Fire.
43:45Fire.
43:46Fire.
43:47Fire.
43:48Fire.
43:49Fire.
43:50Fire.
43:51So, starting with Leslie, I came out the side door of the garage, through the back door,
44:04through the kitchen, through the nearest room, which was the living room, which had fallen
44:11asleep. I'm sure if you pace that out, it would be 25 paces. It's hard to remember,
44:21and I can sort of see it, but I can't guess. I think it was the full length of the hose.
44:26I don't think I cut it short, but I feel like it was the full length. I set the hose beside
44:32her, right up beside her, and she was deeply asleep. And I went back to the garage and started
44:38the engine. My concept, as I say, would have been she had fallen asleep, but then she didn't.
44:51One of the things that happened when she arrived was she called out Matthew, my son's name.
44:57And that's one of the memories that haunts me, is that she called his name, because I didn't
45:02expect her to be awake.
45:05So, I suppose I panicked, because I knew that if she'd wakened up and seen what was going
45:22on, she'd have had him caught. So, we ran in and just put the hose closer and put it over
45:34her head, whatever it was, quilt, over her head. I think at that point, I had a reality
45:43check of what was happening. It was like a, a thing. Almost disbelief that it was happening,
45:52that it was a, I think it was a change in the, it was the fact that I had to do something
45:57more than just leave it there for it if I was to eat for the kid and create a panic.
46:02I wrapped that all up and brought her body to the car. She threw something over a blanket
46:11or something. I set my bicycle on top of that. Then, in the OBT phone lines, if you pick up
46:21the phone, dial the number, and there's a little click before you hear the dial tone, there's
46:25a little dink that goes in the other phone. So, this was a communication that I had learned
46:29during the affair. And so, I made that communication with Hazel that you knew that you heard that
46:33dink at that time that the event had actually happened. And then, I drove over to Buchanan's
46:45house.
46:46I just knew I had to keep going. And, because I had a, part of the plan was that the times
47:04of their deaths would be as close as possible together, that it might not be interpreted as
47:08just being separate.
47:27And so, I drove over to her house and reversed into her garage. And she was there. I think
47:36in disbelief, I'm sure. That's for her to comment on. And repeated the event.
47:46To stop you there, how did you know it was safe to do that?
47:51To go in?
47:53How did you know it was safe to reverse, to go to Charmwood, reverse your car into the
47:58driveway and into the garage, and to start your procedure?
48:02Right. The obvious answer, and it's not that I know it is the answer, but I must have had
48:11some communication from Hazel that it was safe. And did she call me when I made the little dink?
48:19Without trying to withhold anything, I don't remember that right at this point, but yes, if that's...
48:28It's another fundamental part of your plan, isn't it?
48:32It would have to be.
48:33Have to be.
48:34Have to be.
48:35So it must make sense.
48:36Any significant part of your plan?
48:37Yeah.
48:38Yeah.
48:39Yeah.
48:40So, you know, you used the click method to say that you had successfully acquired your
48:48part.
48:50What, what, you know, without, without having some sort of knowledge that it was safe, you're
48:56going to see if you're taking one heck of a risk?
48:57That's right.
48:58That's correct.
48:59I remember saying, obviously, she would have confirmed that Trevor was asleep in bed.
49:15The door was ajar and looked in and Trevor was asleep on the far side of the double bed in
49:22the bedroom.
49:23It was the top end of the hall, the left hand side, an unrolled hose and quietly leaning across
49:36and set it inside the door.
49:39It was probably in the, um, I probably got across as far as the pillow, this, the pillow
49:46and, um, he was lying face down.
49:52I went back out and closed the door, but couldn't close the door because the hose was
49:59through, but closed as far as it went.
50:06I think Hazel hid away at that point.
50:08I don't remember seeing her.
50:11During this part of it, I don't know where she hid because I wasn't looking.
50:15It was, I mean, went to the car, started the engine again.
50:20And, again, I put the pipe up beside him while he slept.
50:29And, um, again, the same thing happened here, awakened, even though he was, um, sedated.
50:36And I had to do the same for him and hold the pipe to his mouth while he died.
50:49I knew I was really very freaked out at the whole idea of, of my plan.
51:10And instead of being this quiet, my concept was, was quiet, falling asleep.
51:16It became actually something I had to physically do.
51:19And that was a new, that was something that I just didn't plan on.
51:25And it made me realize the wheels were coming off everything that I had, in a sense, imagined would happen.
51:36Hazel had left out some clothes for him, so I dressed him in his clothes.
51:40I, I, I lifted his body from his bedroom into the spare bedroom to rest him.
51:46And carried his body into the car beside Leslie's, into the boot of the car.
51:51And, I think my bicycle was, I lifted it out and then set it on top.
52:01Hazel's part role then was to clear up and I gave her the hose pipe and she cut it into sections and burnt it in the fire.
52:07In the fireplace, to get rid of that part of it.
52:11Um, so she, that I, I had organized all this.
52:14So if this was all my idea, with which she cooperated.
52:18I, I, I then drove the car to the bottom of the, I think it's called the Cranner Road.
52:41Left off my bicycle, threw it into the grass, just at the railway crossing.
52:55And drove to the Twelve Apostles, which was now empty because my father-in-law had died.
53:00There was a garage there, I reversed him.
53:07This one and the.
53:08Great.
53:09Is.
53:10That Whoa!
53:11We.
53:12We.
53:13We.
53:14And.
53:15We.
53:16We.
53:17We.
53:18We.
53:19We, we.
53:21We.
53:22We.
53:23We.
53:24We.
53:25We.
53:26We.
53:27We.
53:28We.
53:29We.
53:30We.
53:31We.
53:32We.
53:33I lifted Trevor's body from the boots
53:37into the driver's seat and set it there.
53:41Now, I was aware, his,
53:44I couldn't get him right in.
53:46His leg was partly out the door.
53:47And I knew that later on that led to the idea
53:49that maybe he tried to change his mind
53:51and tried to get out.
53:53But it wasn't intended that I'd put him that way.
53:55That's just the way he fell,
53:56and I couldn't change it.
53:57It was kind of stuck there.
54:03There had been an old broken hoover in the car
54:06that lay on it for a long time,
54:08and I, again, just hooked that up
54:10to look like it had been piped in
54:11just as part of the cover-up.
54:17For Leslie, I put earphones on.
54:21She just had a Sony Walkman,
54:22and I put on whatever was in it
54:25and switched it on
54:26to make it appear she had died
54:28listening to music.
54:31I then started the engine
54:36and left the garage.
54:39so
54:51so
54:52so
54:57I remember running along the beach at Castle Road.
55:27I got my bicycle and second home.
55:57I probably had calculated it would take about two hours.
56:05I think it took near four hours because daylight was breaking just as I, and it was May, so
56:11I know it was light very early in May.
56:19I had done it, and the relief factor was probably stronger than the remorse factor for me.
56:27Looking back now, you're safe in your mind that you murdered two people?
56:38Yes.
56:38It's like asking a child if you know the difference between right and wrong.
56:44I'm asking you, you know, are you clear in your mind that you murdered?
56:47Is it not a fantasy?
56:49Yeah.
56:49You're clear in your mind you murdered Leslie Howell, your wife, and Trevor Buchanan, his husband?
56:54Yes.
56:56100% clear, isn't it?
56:57I'm clear of that, yes.
56:58Her house is a sedative drug, which is a Valium derivative.
57:14I injected it into her.
57:15But she was very lifeless in the sense of responsive to sex, but I had sex with her.
57:24I'm clear of that, yes.
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